The present invention relates to a schedule management system for transmitting and receiving individual and equipmental schedule data between individuals and equipments.
For example, even in the case where a host person of a meeting in an office beforehand informs subjects of participation in the meeting of the date when the meeting will be held, the host person must sufficiently grasp the schedules of the subjects of participation to reduce the number absentees as much as possible.
A technique described in JP-A-5-181867 is a known example most relevant to the present invention.
In the conventional technique, a place retrieval function for retrieving the place for the meeting to be suitable to the scheduled date of the meeting and a term retrieval function for calculating the date on which the largest number of persons will participate in the meeting are used in the schedule management system to thereby make it possible to aid the generation of notice of the meeting on the schedule to reduce the number absentees as much as possible.
There is however a first problem in the conventional technique that the place retrieval function and the term retrieval function need be used repetitively, so that the host person must re-input or correct the date of the meeting because these functions must be executed repetitively unless an expected result is obtained.
There is a second problem that the date on which absentees will be reduced most extremely is not always an optimum retrieval result because the participants are different in significance in accordance with the schedule of the meeting to be held. Practically, the participants are different in significance judged by the host person as to whether they are essential participants or optional participants. Accordingly, such a date on which the largest number of participants can attend the meeting but some essential participants can not attend the meeting may be retrieved.
There is a third problem that there is no means for retrieving the schedule of the meeting for a person representing an arbitrary group because the schedules for the participants are inputted individually when the term retrieval function is used. In the case of such a schedule, the date most suitable to the condition in which at least one representative participant is selected from a group necessary for participation in the meeting is required.
As described above, it is important that the schedule management system is used to make a schedule just as the host person of the meeting designs.